Age of Louis xiv
The '''Age of Louis XIV' lasted from about 1651 AD until 1702 AD. It began the year that Louis XIV officially came of age as king of France. It then ended on the eve of the War of Spanish Succession, the second of a series of major continental wars (along with the War of the Grand Alliance, the War of Austrian Succession and Seven Years’ War) that would dramatically change the European balance of power. If the measure of monarch is the scale of his ambition, then Louis XIV, known as the "Sun King", was truly a kingly colossus. He ruled France for 72 years - the longest of any monarch in European history - during one of its most brilliant periods. In that time, he consolidated a system of absolute monarchy in France, presided over a dazzling royal court at Versailles, and ushered in a golden age of art and science. Louis seemed to have a need to dominate others; his ministers, his nobles, his clergy, his subjects and his neighbours. During his long reign, France was the leading European power, and it fought four major wars: the War of Devolution, the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the Grand Alliance, and the War of the Spanish Succession. He made an number of strategically important territorial gains despite having much of Europe was ranged against him. Europe of the Enlightenment look to Louis' reign as the archetype of an enlightened absolute monarch, ushering in an Age of Absolutism when powerful rulers - Frederick the Great of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, Marie Theresa of Austria and others - claimed to rule for their subjects' well-being. While Louis created a France that was stronger than ever before, many historians argue that Louis unknowingly laid the foundation of the subsequent decades of social upheaval, that would culminate in the French Revolution. In the east, another autocratic ruler, Peter the Great, was transforming Russia based on the latest Western models, molding Russia into an absolutist state. It became recognized as a great power after defeating Sweden in the Great Northern War, securing Russian access to Baltic, and founding his new capital of St Petersburg. Never perhaps has a ruler so rapidly and ruthlessly transformed a backward society. On the opposite end of the political spectrum, Britain emerged from a second tense struggle for political power, the Glorious Revolution, as a Parliamentary Monarchy with a representative government. It was not democratic in a modern sense - barely 4% of the wealthiest British citizens were eligible to vote - but more people had a say in how their country was governed than any other European country, except perhaps the Dutch Republic. Meanwhile, as the capstone was being placed of the Scientific Revolution by Isaac Newton's seminal work, it was inspiring another hugely important movement; the Age of Enlightenment, a period of philosophical activity unparalleled in modern times. Thinkers like John Locke pioneered the approach of applying the rigorous methods of experimental science, to the analysing and reforming society itself. The individual philosophers differed greatly from one another, but emerged out of the common themes of the power of reason over tradition and belief in progress through questioning and dialogue. It was a pivotal period in the development of modern Western political and intellectual culture, advancing such ideas as civil rights, constitutional government, separation of church and state, separation of powers within a government, individual liberty and equality, religious tolerance, and secularism. The Enlightenment ultimately paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, from the American Revolution to the French Revolution, and beyond. History Louis XIV of France Louis XIV Bourbon (1643-1715) ruled France during one of its most brilliant periods, and was widely held to be the greatest monarch of his age; his reign of 72 years is the longest of any monarch in European history. Louis ascended to the throne at the tender age of four upon the death of his father, Louis XIII. With the new king too young to rule, his mother, Anne of Austria (d. 1666), served as regent, alongside first minister, Cardinal Mazarin (d. 1661), a brilliant protégé of Cardinal Richelieu. The years of his minority was dominated by the The Fronde (1648-53), a complicated series of interconnected civil disturbances. Although various movements formed the Fronde - to protect traditional noble privileges, to recover the rights of the French parliament (Estates General), and popular resentment at heavy taxation to fund the Thirty Years' War - they had in common a last attempt to bend the royalist absolutism established under Richelieu. It thus had something in common with another great struggle against the expansion of royal authority that was ongoing across the Channel; the French parliament was excited by the triumph of the Westminster in the English Civil War, though saw the regicide as a step decidedly too far. The Fronde erupted almost shortly before the Peace of Westphalia (1648) was signed, and had three distinct phases over its five years, distinguished by the fortunes and alignments of the three leading figures; Cardinal Mazarin, and two generals who had distinguished themselves during the Thirty Years' War, Prince de Condé and Vicomte de Turenne. During the first phase, the parliament in Paris were the rebels supported by Parisian mobs in the streets, who broke into the royal palace and demanded to see their king; they were appeased after being led to the royal bedchamber to gazed upon Louis, who was feigning sleep. This disquieting incident prompted the royal family, Mazarin, and the court to flee the capital. The conclusion of the Thirty Years' War allowed Condé's army to return and, within two months, Paris had been besieged into submission on their behalf. Unfortunately, this partial victory depended on the ambitious Condé, saviour of the situation, who wanted to control the regency and destroy Mazarin's influence. In January 1650, Condé was arrested, provoking the second phase of the civil war. All the high nobility united against Mazarin, led by Condé's old companion in arms, Turenne. By February 1651 Mazarin had been forced to flee the country, and for the next six months Condé controlled the regency, but his spell in power did not last. In September 1651, Louis XIV officially came of age, and deprived the aristocracy of their pretext for revolt. The Fronde gradually lost steam, Mazarin returned from exile in triumph. This time Condé fled Paris, but Turenne sided with the court. The two great generals finally met at the Battle of the Faubourg St. Antoine (July 1652), just outside the walls of Paris. It was a resounding victory for Turenne, and by the following spring all was calm. The Fronde failed completely. Mazarin remained in power, and continued to lay the foundations for an absolutist monarchy. He nevertheless proceeded with tact and skill, with only a few prominent rebels exiled, and none executed. All these events were witnessed by Louis, shaping his future distrust of Paris and the nobility. Despite the fact that Louis XIV had officially come-of-age, Cardinal Mazarin remained the dominant figure at court until his death in 1661, with the young king as his most attentive pupil. At home, Mazarin continued to build an elaborate centralised administration, while internationally, war with Spain continued beyond the Thirty Years' War. The war was brought to a satisfactory conclusion in 1658, with useful territorial gains on the Pyrenees and Belgian frontiers. As part of the peace treaty, Louis married Maria Theresa Habsburg (d. 1683), the daughter of the Spanish king; a marriage later significant in the Spanish War of Succession. When Mazarin died, he left a kingdom at peace at home and abroad, as well as his own talented protégé, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (d. 1683), much as Richelieu had before. But the king would have no more of over-powerful first ministers. Louis informed an astonished Colbert and the rest of his ministers that he intended to assume all responsibility for ruling his kingdom; his minsters would henceforth be merely the king's loyal servant. It is probable that Louis never said the famous words "L'État c'est moi (I am the State)", but even if apocryphal, the statement reflects Louis' concept of his kingly role. To illustrate his status, he chose the Sun as the emblem of his reign, and cultivated the image of an omniscient and infallible Sun King around whom the entire realm orbited. He seemed to have a need to dominate others; his ministers, his nobles, his clergy, his subjects and his neighbours. One of the first acts of Louis' personal rule was to arrest Nicolas Fouquet, a ministers who was ambitious to succeed Mazarin and Richelieu as first minister. Fouquet was charged with embezzlement, though he'd committed no financial indiscretions that Mazarin hadn't committed before him, and Colbert wouldn't after him. The crown also seized Fouquet's superb chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte near Melun, 55 kilometres southeast of Paris. It had been built over the last five years, with Louis Le Vau as chief architect, Charles Le Brun designing the interiors, and André Le Nôtre in charge of its spectacular gardens. Louis was so impressed that he employed the same men to create an architectural symbol of absolute rule at Versailles, 25-miles south-west of Paris. The former hunting-lodge was transformed into one of the largest and most extravagant palaces in Europe between 1664 and '89, though it was sufficiently complete by 1682 to become the permanent home of the French court. The aim of Versailles was both to dazzle the high noblity into submission, and to lure them into the role of courtiers. Some 3,000 courtiers lived at Versailles, jostling for the king's attention and favours in an elaborate court ritual. Every part of the king's day was a performance; getting up (the lever), eating (the couvert), going to bed (the coucher). To be allowed to watch him on any such occasion was a privilege, to sit on a chair in his presence a high honour. Those who failed to pay court were unable to gain pensions and privileges necessary to their rank. While Louis himself was unmistakably the centre of attention, he also had a keen interest in art, theatre and especially dance. He was fortunate in being able to call on France's three greatest dramatists, all working during his reign; Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, and Molière. Moreover, Louis founded national ballet companies, the Académie Royale de Danse (1661) and the Paris Opera (1669), the first dance institutions established in the Western world. While the nobles spent the majority of their year at Versailles, Louis set about reforming France according to his own vision. In the 17th century, France was at the forefront of scientific developments in Europe. To encourage and protect this spirit of scientific innovation, the French Academy of Sciences (1666) and Paris Observatory (1672) were founded. With the help of Colbert, France's disorganized system of taxation was made more efficient, and formerly haphazard borrowing practices were improved. Colbert also carried out wide-ranging reforms to strengthen France through commerce and trade, based on the prevailing economic orthodoxy of mercantilism. The mercantile theory states that countries grow rich by becoming economically self-sufficient thus importing little, while constantly seeking opportunities for selling surplus manufactured goods to other countries. Industries and inventors were encouraged, such as the Lyon silk producers, and the Gobelins Workshop, a producer of luxury furniture and tapestries. Artisans from across Europe were invited to France, such as Venetian glassmakers, Swedish ironworkers, and Dutch shipbuilders. For this same purpose Colbert improved internal transport, with major undertakings such as the Canal du Midi, linking Toulouse to the Mediterranean. He also established colonial enterprises to ensure a supply of raw materials, and erected tariff barriers against foreign imports. Yet any long-term benefits from Colbert's efforts were somewhat undermined by Louis' policy on religion. The king's determination to have his own way in all things, made him incapable of tolerating the French Huguenot (Protestants) minority. As often with minority groups, the Huguenots tend to be hard-working and had prospered economically, since the French Wars of Religion left them with only their freedom of worship. Their success made the Catholic clergy even more eager to suppress them. Louis began discriminating against Protestants from the outset of his personal rule, excluding them from office, constraining the meeting of synods, banning outdoor preachers, and closing churches outside the areas specifically stipulated in the Edict of Nantes (1598). When this failed to effect their conversion, less subtle methods were adopted in the 1680s. Troops were garrisoned in Huguenot villages with orders to cause as much mayhem as they liked to their heretical hosts. This finally prompted a steady stream of conversion to Catholicism, and in 1685 Louis officially revoked the Edict of Nantes. He claimed there were now so few Huguenots that these privileges were redundant, but events proved the king dramatically wrong in his assessment. With Protestantism now effectively illegal in France, some 200,000 French citizens emigrated rather than deny their beliefs. These included many skilled merchants, craftsmen, and industrialists whose departure only benefited the places where they chose to settle, such as England, the Dutch Netherlands, Brandenburg-Prussia and the American colonies. To be clear, Louis' thinking was the prevailing contemporary view in Europe to assure socio-political stability, epitomized by the phrase, “''he who governs the territory, decides its religion''”. Even in the Dutch Netherlands, perhaps the most religiously tolerant country of the times, the Catholic minority took great pains not to draw attention; Catholic churches were often designed to look like ordinary townhouses from the outside. Meanwhile, Louis had no intention of now submitting to the authority of the Papacy: French bishops could not appeal to the Pope, or even leave the country, without royal approval; and all papal regulations without royal assent were invalid in France. During Louis' long reign, France was the leading European power, and the French king was notorious for his aggressive foreign policy. He was fortunate in being able to call on the services on a number of exceptional generals, among them Sébastien de Vauban (d. 1707), the foremost military engineer of the age. Vauban built or redesigned as many as 160 fortresses, but his most significant contribution was tactics for breaching an enemy's stronghold, which remained in use until the early-20th-century. In 1667, Louis launched the first of his four wars; the War of Devolution (1667–68) against Spanish Belgium. He deemed Belgium his wife's rightful inheritance on the death her father, Philip IV of Spain (d. 1665). Maria Theresa had officially renounced all claims to Spanish territories upon her marriage, but Louis deemed this agreement had been nullified, because the Spanish never paid the entire dowry. With Spain preoccupied by the Portuguese War of Independence (1640-68), the French easily overran western Belgium. Shocked by this rapid French success, the Dutch Netherlands put aside their differences with England and, when joined by Sweden, formed the anti-French Triple Alliance (1668). Faced with the threat of an escalation, Louis reluctantly negotiated peace, relinquishing some of his gains in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668). This unsatisfactory outcome left Louis feeling betrayed by the Dutch, after-all the French had aided them for decades during the Dutch War of Independence. He spent the next few years isolating the Dutch internationally, by forming alliances with England, Sweden, and two German states, and then launching the Franco-Dutch War (1672-78). Louis mobilised almost 200,000 men for the invasion of the Netherlands, who rapidly occupied of much of the country, including Utrecht. Amsterdam was only saved by the desperate Dutch manoeuvre of breaching the dykes and flooding the plain to halt the French advance. Moreover, an attempted Anglo-French naval invasion was only barely repelled in three desperate naval battles by the brilliant Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. In Dutch history, 1672 is called the Rampjaar ("the disaster year"), and, as people panicked, a bloody coup swept William of Orange (d. 1702) to power; the future William III of England. William spent the next few years building another anti-French alliance, that eventually included Spain, Habsburg Austria, Brandenburg-Prussia, and Denmark, with a treaty with England that resulted in its withdrawal from the war, as well as the marriage of William to Princess Mary of England; a wedding later significant in the English Glorious Revolution. Despite these diplomatic reverses, the French armies still held significant advantages over their opponents; a unified command and strategy, talented generals like Vauban, Turenne, Condé and Luxembourg, and vastly superior logistics. The war continued on many fronts, with considerable French success, until exhaustion prompted Louis to sue for peace. The Treaty of Nijmegen (1678) was generally settled in France's favour, gaining further territory in Spanish Belgium, while the Dutch retained their independence. During the 1680s, Louis XIV was at the height of his power and influence in Europe. French expansionism continued in piecemeal fashion, often using quasi-legal means to annex disputed cities and territory along its frontiers. One of these excursions across the Rhine in 1688, with designs on extending influence in Cologne and the Rhineland-Palatinate, prompted the formation of the first truly coherent European response to French aggression. Determined to resist, Habsburg Austria and other German princes formed the Grand Alliance which eventually included England, Scotland, the Dutch Netherlands, Austria, Bavaria, Prussia, Spain, Savoy (centred on Turin north-western Italy), and Portugal. Despite facing opposition encompassing most of Europe, the War of the Grand Alliance (1688–97) generally proceeded favourably for France at first. Louis was aided by the fact the allies were preoccupied with other issues; imperial Germany was fighting the Ottoman Turks in the east, the Dutch Netherlands was financially exhausted, and England was distracted by troubles in Ireland in the wake of the Glorious Revolution. The main fighting took place around France's borders in Spanish Belgium, the Rhinelands, north-western Italy, and Catalonia in Spain, where the French accumulated a string of victories, though none decisive. A naval stalemate also ensued, with French victories at the Battle of Beachy Head (July 1690) and Torroella (May 1694), offset by Allied victory at the Battle of Barfleur-La Hougue (June 1692). Eventually both sides were financially exhausted, the war was brought to a close with the Treaty of Ryswick (1697). In some respects, the treaty appeared a diplomatic defeat for Louis, who surrendered most of his recent territorial gains east of the Rhine and in Catalonia. But he did in fact fulfill many of his aims: gaining permanent sovereignty of Lorraine, creating the Rhine as a defensible frontier with Germany; and dividing his enemies by manipulating rivalries within the anti-French alliance. In any case, peace in 1697 was desirable to Louis, conserving his strength for the struggle over a much more important European prize; the Spanish War of Succession. By his death in 1715, a few days before his 77 birthday, Louis XIV had left an indelible mark on France and Europe. Even with several great alliances opposing him, he transformed France into the dominant continental power, built an colonial empire, and firmly centralised the government. European princes began to imitate France in everything from art to food, fashion to deportment; many even took official mistresses simply because it was done at Versailles. The French language became the lingua franca for the entire European elite as far away as Russia. Europe of the Enlightenment look to Louis' reign as the archetype of an enlightened absolute monarch. The 18th century Age of Absolutism would see a slew of autocratic rulers - Frederick the Great of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, Marie Theresa of Austria and others - claiming to rule for their subjects' well-being, and tried to apply Enlightenment thought on religious and political tolerance. While Louis created a France that was stronger than ever before, many historians argue that Louis unknowingly laid the foundation of the subsequent decades of social upheaval, that would culminate in the French Revolution. Louis never once called the French parliament (Estates General) throughout his long reign. With the king and nobility isolated in Versailles, he created a stark divide between the political elites and the common people of France, especially Paris. Moreover, one method that Louis used to raise funds for his wars was by selling noble titles; the so-called Robe Nobility, as opposed to the older Sword Nobility. On the eve of the French Revolution, France had somewhere in the region of 260,000 nobles, who were largely exempt from taxation, and placing a heavy burden on the common people. Yet these difficulties occurring almost 80 years after his death were unforeseeable to Louis. If the measure of monarch is the scale of his ambition, then he was truly a kingly colossus. After 72 years on the throne, he was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV Bourbon. The Glorious Revolution in England With the restoration of the monarchy, Charles II Stuart (1660-85) proved a refreshing change from the straight-laced Oliver Cromwell. His manner was light and easy, his court was decadent and cheerful, and his personal life debauched; he had at least a dozen illegitimate children by seven different mistresses, most famously Nell Gwyn, a former orange seller and actress. Theatres reopened as Puritanism lost momentum, and bawdy comedies became a popular genre. In a way, the sense of a new beginning was strengthened by the destruction of the capital. Ever since the Black Death there had been regular recurrences of the plague in European cities. In 1665, a severe outbreak struck London, and killed about 20% of the city's population. Then the next year, after a hot and dry summer what later became known as the Great Fire of London started in a bakehouse on Pudding Lane. Fed by wood and fuel stockpiled for the coming winter, and spread by strong winds, the fire consumed some 13,200 houses and 87 churches over the course of four days. Charles famously took personal charge of firefighting in the streets, winning plaudits for his decisive action. Christopher Wren was appointed principal architect for rebuilding the capital. In an extraordinary effort by a single architect, Wren designed 36 guildhalls and 52 churches, including what is regarded as his masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral with its distinctive dome, and the tall Monument commemorating the fire itself. Private citizens could rebuild their own houses and shops according to the old street-plan, and narrow streets of medieval London regrew from the ashes with more brick and less wood. Meanwhile the public blamed Catholic conspirators for the fire, and one Frenchman, Robert Hubert, was hanged for his part in the non-existent plot; he hadn't even been in London when the fire happened. There was a pathological fear of Papists; awkward, since Charles and his brother James were drawn to Catholicism from their time in exile in the French and Spanish courts. In Charles' case it remained a closely guarded secret; he was only baptized Catholic on his deathbed. But his younger brother James, duke of York, acting more from religious conviction, was less inclined to caution, though the king forced him to preserve an Anglican front. Charles II was far better at handling parliament than his father had been, but when he attempted to introduce religious tolerance for Catholics and non-conformist Protestants with the Declaration of Indulgence (1672), the English parliament forced him to withdraw it. Instead he had to accept the even more restrictive Test Act, which forced holders of public offices to swear an oath denouncing certain teachings of the Catholic Church; service in the military, and even university education were also restricted to Anglicans. James resigned from his public offices rather than take the oath, and his private faith became public knowledge; a grave concern since the king had no legitimate children, and his brother was the presumptive heir. It became an explosive issue in 1678, when an Anglican priest called Titus Oates fabricated the "Papish Plot", a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill the king and put his brother on the throne. In the resulting hysteria 35 Catholics were accused of treason and executed before Oates was exposed as a perjurer. Even though based on fantasy, the crisis of 1678 set the political agenda for the remainder of Charles' reign, giving rise to the policy of "Exclusion"; the argument that James, though undeniably the legitimate heir to the throne, should be excluded from the succession on the grounds of his religion. The debate gave rise to the two great political parties, the Whigs and Tories (pro-Exclusion and anti-Exclusion respectively), that would dominate English politics until the mid-19th-century. But Charles, passionately committed to securing his brother's rights, contrived to calm the situation; he repeatedly dissolved parliament until public opinion decisively shifted in his favour. Despite the religious tensions of recent decades, Charles' brother succeeded to the throne peacefully as James II Stuart (1685-88); the first Catholic monarch of England since Mary I Tudor, 127 years before. However a safeguard remained. James' two daughters had been raised Protestant at the insistence of Charles II. James' conciliatory words reassured the parliament of 1685, which was decidedly royalist, and granted him emergency revenues for the first real crisis of his reign. The restoration of the monarchy had obviously not been welcomed by everyone; in the south-west Puritan feeling remained strong and suspicious, especially with a Catholic king. Soon after becoming king, James faced a rebellion in the region in support of Charles' Protestant illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth. The Monmouth’s Rebellion (1685) was a fiasco, with the local nobility refusing to sanction civil war. Monmouth was defeated and captured at the Battle of Sedgemoor (July 1685), and later executed later beheaded at the Tower of London. Determined to make an example of the rebels, 230 of his supporters were condemned to death and around 850 sentence to 10-years hard-labour in the West Indies. During the rebellion, James had used royal prerogative to dispensed with the Test Act, and appoint Catholics to positions of leadership. Afterwards, he made it clear that he intended to maintain this standing army to protect himself from further rebellions, and advocated repealing the laws against Catholics occupying the public offices of the kingdom. Unfortunately for James, as he was trying to browbeat parliament into repealing the Test Act, in France Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had protected the rights of French Protestants for nearly a century. The repression of Huguenots inflamed English public opinion. The king’s effort on behalf of Catholics was doomed; his supporters in parliament were royalist rather than pro-Catholic. National tension becomes acute during the summer of 1688. In April, James ordered a new Declaration of Indulgence be read from the pulpits of every Anglican church, freeing Catholics and non-conformist Protestants from the legal restrictions of the Test Act. When the Archbishop of Canterbury and six other bishops objected, the king tried to face down the dissent by charging them with seditious libel. It proved a public relations disaster. The seven bishops refused bail, forcing James to arrest and imprison them in the Tower of London. The fate of James was sealed in June, when his wife gave birth to a son, who would doubtless be raised Catholic. When James' only possible heirs were his two Protestant daughters, Anglicans could see his pro-Catholic policies as a temporary phenomenon, but now the nightmare was at hand of Protestant England under a Catholic dynasty. Wild rumours spread that the queen had given birth to a stillborn child, and the baby-boy was a changeling smuggled into her confinement in a bed-pan. When a court defied the king by acquitting the seven bishops two weeks later, parliament was persuaded that the time had come to take action. was married to Protestant William of Orange, head of state of the Dutch Republic; a hero to the Protestant cause on continental Europe. Seven leading members of parliament write a letter to William of Orange, husband of James' eldest daughter Mary and Protestant ruler of the Dutch Republic, inviting him to claim the English throne; Glorious Revolution (1688-89). William was naturally eager to take-up the offer; he had barely survived the Franco-Dutch War (1672-78) against Louis XIV, and was forming the Grand Alliance to call a halt to renewed French aggression, in which he needed England as an ally rather than a rival. Crossing the Channel in October 1688 was precarious, but favourable eastern winds, later dubbed the “''Protestant wind''”, kept the English fleet at anchor while Dutch ships landed unopposed at Torbay; the south-west having its own score to settle with the king. James' support began to dissolve almost immediately, with parliament, influential nobles, and Protestant army officers defecting to the invader. James II panicked, and attempted to flee the country; he was caught at Kent, but allowed to excape by William, having no desire to see James martyred. In February 1689, parliament agreed to treat James’s flight as an abdication and to offer the crown jointly to William III and Mary II (1689-1702), conditional on accepting the Bill of Rights (1689), establishing restrictions on royal prerogative. For example, the monarch could not raise a standing army unless parliament agreed, levy taxes without parliament's approval, suspend laws passed by parliament, unduly interfere with parliamentary elections, imprison anyone without due legal process, declare war nor leave the kingdom without the consent of parliament. All the questions posed by the English Civil War had finally been answered, in a glorious and bloodless revolution. It would not be bloodless in Ireland; the Williamite War in Ireland. Williamite War in Ireland Ireland became the main battleground of the Glorious Revolution (1688), the one part of his kingdom where Catholic James II could expect enthusiastic support. When James fled from England, the earl of Tyrconnell, Lord Deputy of Ireland, remained loyal to him rather than to William III. With the active support of Louis XIV, James sailed from France in March 1689 with a small army of about 1,200 French troops; the Williamite War in Ireland (1689-91) can be viewed as part of a wider European conflict known as the War of the Grand Alliance. They landed in Kinsale near Cork, and marched to Dublin, where James was proclaimed king by an enthusiastic gathering of Irish Catholics, eagerly expecting now to recover the lands appropriated over the past century by the Protestant Plantations. Like the Irish Confederate Wars three decades before, the war divided Ireland on sectarian lines, with Irish Catholics (both Gaelic Irish and Old English) on one side, and Protestant settlers on the other. In April, James moved north to take control of Ulster, where the Protestant settlement was strongest and culminating in the Siege of Londonderry, one of the last strongholds of Protestant resistance. But the defenders closed the city gates, and they remained shut until the garrison was relieved after 105 days of slogan; their slogan of "No Surrender" would echo through the centuries. This escalating crisis brought William III himself to Ireland with a large army. There followed a year of wary and inconclusive skirmishing, until the rivals finally confronted each other at the Battle of the Boyne (June 1690). This was a battle about European, English, and Irish power struggles, and both armies were diverse; French, Dutch, Germans, Danes, English, and Irish prepared to fight. William III had the larger army - about 35,000 men to 21,000 - and adopted bolder tactics, but his victory in itself was inconclusive. His advance in the centre was relatively successful, but his cavalry charge on the flank fail, allowing the Jacobite forces to withdraw in good order. What proves politically decisive was the immediate flight of James to Dublin and soon back to France; he has gone down in Irish history as Séamus an Chaca ("James the beshitten coward"). The Irish fought on for another full year, hoping still to win two concessions. Indeed, the terms of the Treaty of Limerick (1691) that ended the war seemed vaguely promising. Like all vague promises, they were later disregarded by the victors. One specific option did have an immediate effect. There was a clause offering transport to France for any Irish rebels. Several thousand seized this opportunity, becoming collectively known as "Wild Geese". They and their descendants would provide the Irish Brigade within the French army until 1791, during the French Revolution. For William III, the Boyne and the battles that followed were important, but only in terms of securing his throne and as part of a wider European power struggle. In Ireland however, his victory marked the beginning of the Protestant Ascendancy (1691-1832). By the end of the Catholic elite in Ireland had either been wiped out, driven into exile, abandoned any resistance, or converted to Protestantism. Confiscation of property from rebels reduced Catholic land-holdings from the already low figure of 22% of Ireland to a mere 14%. Moreover, a series of draconian Penal Laws severely restricted the religious, political and economic activities of Catholics. Already banned from sitting in the Irish parliament, holding public office or serving in the army, Catholics were now banned from voting, from running schools, from buying land, from intermarriage with Protestants, from holding firearms, from attending university, or even from owning a horse worth more than £5. Perhaps the most heinously ingenious measure was the restriction on Catholic inheritance. An existing Catholic estate had to be equally subdivided between all an owner's sons, with the result that within a generation or two, Catholics had been reduced to subsistence smallholders or sold up; by 1776, Catholics owned just 5% of all land in Ireland. Protestants (Anglican English or Presbyterian Scots) controlled the bulk of the farmland, all major sectors of the Irish economy, the Irish parliament, local government, and the legal system. Ireland remained relatively calm until the end of the 18th century, when Irish antagonism toward England was re-awoken by the Europe-wide upheavals stirred by American Civil War and French Revolution. Parliamentary Monarchy in England After more than half a century of conflict with the Stuarts, with the reign of William III and Mary II (1689-1702), it was clear that things really had changed. England was now in effect ruled by a wealthy Protestant oligarchy through parliament. The monarch still had a role, but by no means a commanding one. William III had come to England to further his continental ambitions, but even when parliament granted permission to participate in the War of the Grand Alliance (1688–97). the expenditure was carefully overseen. Even the question of succession was settled by parliament with the Act of Settlement (1701). It established the principle that only Protestant members of the royal family could wear the crown. Mary II died of smallpox in 1694, leaving William III to rule alone. The marriage had not yielded any children, and the crowned passed on William's own death in 1702 to Mary’s sister Anne Stuart (1702-14). The most significant even of Anne's reign was the Act of Union (1707), a political union between England and Scotland. Although the Stuart Dynasty had originated in Scotland, the northern kingdom had largely been ignored since the personal union of the crowns since 1603. The late-17th-century was difficult for Scotland. In an era of economic rivalry in Europe, Scotland was incapable of protecting itself from English competition, while denied tariff free trading access to England or its developing colonies. In 1695 some of Scotland's merchants founded the Company of Scotland, a colonial enterprise similar to the English East India Company, with the aim of establishing a port on the Gulf of Darién (modern-day Panama), and thus becoming the middleman in all the trade of the new world. The scheme was a runaway success, with Scotland's nobles, merchants, cities and boroughs investing; by some estimates 20% of all the money in Scotland ended up in the Company. But the colony never stood a chance; the English passively opposed it, keen to maintain a monopoly on foreign trade, while the Spanish opposed it militarily. The Company of Scotland collapsed within five years. Self-interested Scottish politicians engineered the Act of Union in order to recover their personal financial losses. It abolished the Scottish parliament, giving the Scots instead a proportion of the seats in Westminster. There were safeguards for Scotland's legal system, radically different from English common law. For the Scottish elites, the union was hugely unpopular; ignored as the Scottish parliament, they could now play an active role in the heart of the politics. For the rest of Scotland, the loss of centuries of independent sovereignty was harder to swallow, not least because it brought higher English taxes. The faction that had remained loyal to James II, and now to his son James the Old Pretender (d. 1766), was revived by the unpopularity of the union. In 1708, the Old Pretender attempted to invade Scotland with a French fleet, but storms and the English navy prevented the landing. A more serious attempt was made soon after Queen Anne's death in 1714. Despite seventeen miscarriages, she died without an heir and was the last monarch of the House of Stuart. Under the Act of Settlement (1701), which excluded all Catholics, Anne was succeeded by her German Protestant cousin, George I Hanover (1714-27). The Jacobite Rising of 1715 envisaged simultaneous uprisings in Wales, Devon, and Scotland. However, the ventures south of the border were mostly betrayed and suppressed before they got started. In Scotland, 10,000 men rallied to the Jacobite cause under the earl of Mar, particularly from the Highlands, tempting the Old Pretender to cross from France bringing money. But Mar proved an incompetent general, and was defeated by a government force almost half his size near Stirling, before the Old Pretender landed in December. Finding his support disorganised and plagued by desertions, he decided that discretion was the better part of valour and was back in France two months later. The fiasco of this uprising, known simply as the Fifteen, ensured that the Hanoverians are secure on the British throne. But the Jacobite cause remained a romantic one, passionately held, and surfaced again thirty years later in a final and more serious rising, the Forty-Five, led by the grandson of James II, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender. He landed in the Hebrides early in August 1745 with just seven companions. Less than half the Highland clans rallied to his cause, but he gathered a force large enough to march on Edinburgh. Yet support for the government was no more enthusiastic, and most Scots simply let them pass. In September, Charles entered the Edinburgh and then defeated the only government army in Scotland at the Battle of Prestonpans. Many of his followers now advised that he should simply take Scotland, but Charles was convinced that victory awaited him, and marched south to invade England. The Jacobite army took Carlisle and advanced as far as south as Derby. However, it became increasingly evident that England would not support a Catholic Stuart, and his followers lost heart; they were too far from the safety of Scotland, and promised French support had failed to materialise. In December, Charles reluctantly headed back north, pursued by an English army recently returned from the continent. The two sides finally met at the Battle of Culloden (April 1746), often cited as the last pitched battle on British soil. Charles' forces were outnumbered and exhausted after an attempted night attack descended into farce. The battle, on an exposed moor, lasted only an hour, and was a complete Scottish rout. Charles himself escaped back to France after five months in hiding, but it was the end of the Jacobite cause. And the government introduced punitive measures to pacify the Highlands of Scotland. Rebels leaders were shipped to penal-colonies in the West Indies, estates were confiscated, clans were displaced with the enclosure of common land, and all aspects of Highland culture forbidden; the Scottish Gaelic language, the bearing of arms, the bagpipes, and, in the most symbolic gesture, the wearing of tartans. From the accession of George I Hanover, Britain truly transitioned into the modern system of Parliamentary Monarchy. He could barely speak a word of English, but it matter little, for the political struggles of the realm occurred in parliament. Peter the Great of Imperial Russia The foundational period of the Russian state, under Ivan the Great (d. 1505) and Ivan the Terrible (d. 1583), was followed by a spell of anarchy, dynastic chaos and foreign invasions, known in Russian history as the Time of Troubles. Stability and peace was restored when the Russian nobility rallied to a unified national defence, and elected one Tsar who they could all agree to follow. This was Michael I Romanov (1613-45), the first of the Romanov Dynasty (1613-1917) that would rule Russia all the way down until the Russian Revolution. The reigns of Michael and his son Alexis Romanov (1645-76) were notable chiefly for the rapid expansion of Russian territory, a task made easier because its chief rivals - Sweden and Poland-Lithuania - were distracted by involvement in the Thirty Years' War. In the west, Kiev and a large part of Ukraine were brought under Russian control, after the Cossacks revolted against their former Polish masters; the origin of the Cossacks is disputed but they may have been serfs who escaped from their landlords, to live a freebooting existence on the southern steppes, raiding and trading as the Mongols once had. The Cossacks subsequent played an important role in the continued Russian drive eastwards. The pattern was for Cossack bands to press into new regions of Siberia, as yet occupied only by fur-trappers and native tribes. They then establish fortified settlements, and demand tribute for Moscow from the local population; tribute generally paid in furs, which became a major part of Russia's trade with Europe. The speed of advance across these open but inhospitable regions was astonishing; in 1613, there were Russian outposts as far as the Yenisei River, 1,750 miles east of Moscow; the Lena River was reached in 1630, another 1,000 miles east; and the Pacific coast in 1649, 750 miles further. From the start, the Russian government found a secondary use for Siberia, as a place of enforced exile for dissenters in truly appalling conditions. The first victims of this very Russian punishment were the leaders of a series of peasant revolts; the Salt Riot (1648), Copper Riot (1662), Razin Uprising (1670) and Moscow Uprising (1682). None of these were serious challenges to the authorities in Moscow, which continued to centralise its power under a permanent bureaucracy, aided by the fact the nobles were now eager to work with the government to avoid the chaos of the Time of Troubles. The reign of Alexis' son, Peter the Great (1682-1725), left its imprint on the whole history of Russia, ushering in the social, institutional, and intellectual trends that were to dominate Russia for the next two centuries. The seminal nature of his reign owes much to Peter’s own personality and youth. Peter was just 4-years-old when his father death prompted a complicated succession crisis between the children by his first and second wife. His half-sister Sophia emerged as the dominant figure at court, who completely excluded Peter from public affairs. He thus grew up in the village of Preobrazhenskoye, just outside Moscow, in a free atmosphere among children of lessor birth, rather than the petty backbiting of court life. Physically he grew to an imposing 6 ft 8 in height, and gifted with an energetic and inquisitive mind that was particularly interested in sailing and ship-building. Near Preobrazhenskoye there was a “''German colony''” where foreigner merchants were allowed to reside, which aroused Peter’s interest the world beyond Russia. In 1689, when Peter was seventeen, Sophia faced the likelihood of losing her position as regent. Peter's formidable mother emerged victories from the resulting factional struggle, and excercised power until her death in 1694; Sophia was confined to a convent for the rest of her life. At 22-years-old Peter acquired actual control over Russian affairs, inheriting a nation that was territoriality huge, but severely underdeveloped. While the Age of Discovery, Reformation, and Scientific Revolution had swept through the West, Russia remained isolated and insular. During his reign, Peter undertake sweeping reform that affected all areas of Russian government, culture, and society. Never, perhaps, has a ruler so rapidly and ruthlessly transformed a backward society. In 1697, Peter spent 18th-months personally touring Western Europe with a large Russian delegation known as the Grand Embassy. As was his style, he travelled incognito, to avoid getting bogged down in endless diplomatic protocol. The embassey's stated aim was to find allies against the Ottoman Turks, but this proved futile with the Europe preoccupied by the impending War of the Spanish Succession. The Grand Embassy continued nevertheless, spending time with the great Dutch engineers and ship-builders of Amsterdam, touring the facilities of Britain, and hiring thousands of foreign experts to educate Russia about recent technological advancements. All the while, Peter's mind was filled with visions of modernising Russia, and, as soon as he is back in Moscow, he forged ahead with his reforms. Two hundred years of traditional court routine, assemblies of the noblity, and provincial institutions, that had been in place since Ivan the Great, simply perished of neglect. Instead Peter ruled as an autocratic monarch, through a small council of advisers working directly through the centralised bureaucracy. This council gradually became more formalised and professional, with ministerial heads running their individual departments staffed by both Russian and foreign experts. In administration Peter broke with the traditional assumption of hereditary offices, and tried to institute a bureaucracy selected on grounds of merit. Even the nobility had to chip in; aristocrats could serve the state, or lose their titles and land. He introduced the Table of Ranks, which spelled out the hierarchy of ranks, titles, and promotions of all state servants, from nobles to civil servants, courtiers to the military; it would remain in place right up to the revolution of 1917. Some aristocrats lost all they had, while capable state employees of humble origin and even foreigners became Russian nobles. To be educated was a prerequisite for state service. Schools were secularised, and the sons of nobles encouraged to attend universities in Western Europe. Peter also put the reactionary Orthodox Church under firm state control. When the Patriarch of Moscow died in 1700, he declined to nominate a successor, instead establishing a synod of bishops to run it, so that no one man could rival the Tsar’s power. Peter's journey to the West had meanwhile impressed upon him the notion that European customs were superior to Russian traditions. In a deliberate break with the past, he henceforth dressed in European clothes and unshaven, and the introduction of a new tax on beards made it clear to officials and nobles that they should follow the Tsar's example; women were to appear in public in the latest German fashions. Further mirroring the West, he modernised the Russian alphabet, introduced the Julian calendar, and established the first Russian newspaper. Peter then turned to the army and navy, and began reforming them along European lines - command structure, strategy, armoury, training etc - with the help of foreign advisors particularly from Prussia. He wanted to make the Russian military a true modern power to be reckoned with. Many of these domestic reforms were in service to Peter's foreign policy outlook, which was dominated by his personal obsession with all things maritime. He saw effectively landlocked Russia as being held back from true greatness, until it could win a "window to the sea". Russia did technically have one port at Archangel on the White Sea in the north, but this was frozen nine-months of the year. To satisfy his ambition, Peter first turned his attention south towards the port of Azov, at the north end of the Black Sea, which at that time was controlled by the Ottoman Turks. This military campaign vividly demonstrates the iron-will of the man. In the summer of 1695, he led a large Russian army to the port of Azov, which was besieged for two months without success. But this did not discourage Peter. He spent the winter building a great fleet of ships at Voronezh, that sailed down the Don River the next year, and blockaded the Azov into submission. While this was a great victory for Peter, the Ottomans were able to confine the Russians to the Sea of Azov; thus Peter had a warm water port, but nowhere to go, with no access to trade on the Black Sea. Peter's greatest foreign entanglement was the Great Northern War (1700–21). In the wake of the Thirty Years' War, Sweden was the dominant force in the Baltic Sea, and one of Europe's great powers, with an army considered one of the world's best. When fifteen-year-old Charles XII (1697-1718) inherited the Swedish crown, his neighbours saw it as the perfect opportunity to reclaim lost ground, with Russia, Poland-Saxony, and Denmark-Norway forming an anti-Swedish alliance. All the belligerents had their own reasons for joining, but Peter had one burning ambition; to win a warm-water port on the Baltic Sea. The war seemed at first to give conclusive proof that Sweden fully deserved her pre-eminence in the region. With concerted attacks on Swedish territory on three fronts, Charles XII dealt with each in turn. He first attacked Denmark, out-maneuvering their navy, and threatening Copenhagen itself. Having forced the Danes out of the war within a few months, Charles XII rapidly redeployed his forces to the eastern Baltic. Despite Peter's efforts to modernise his army, the Russians were ill-prepared to fight the Swedes, and their first attempt at seizing territory on the Baltic coast ended in disaster at the Battle of Narva (November 1700). Charles XII then turned his full attention to Poland, and, over the next six years, won a series of victory. He took Warsaw in 1702, deposing the Polish king in 1704, and completed the humiliation in 1706 by imposing a puppet king on Poland. Now with Poland out of the war as well, Charles XII moved to confront Russia with an army of almost 44,000 men. His intention was to march on Moscow, and force Peter to withdraw from the ground he had regained in the intervening years. In a campaign that foreshadowed Napoleon Bonaparte's more famous offensive, the plan was frustrated by Peter's strategy of avoiding pitched battle, while devastating the countryside before the advancing Swedish army. The winter of 1708-09 was extraordinarily cold throughout Europe, with the rivers famously freezing in London to Venice. This served Peter well. It was a much reduced Swedish army, of some 24,000 men, which finally clashed with the Russians at the Battle of Poltava (July 1709). In the first major disaster in Charles XII's brilliant military career, almost the whole Swedish army either captured or killed, and Charles himself had to flee south into Ottoman Turkish territory. The war continued for over a decade until 1721 - Charles XII managed to return to Sweden and enjoying some limited success until his death in 1718 - but the resulting post war dynamic was already settling into place soon after Poltava. Sweden’s days as a great power were over; she had been the first victim of a new one. Long before the eventual peace between Russia and Sweden, Peter had moved to secure his window to the Baltic. In 1702, he captured a Swedish fortress perfectly placed to prosper at the mouth of the Neva River, and, the next year, ordered the construction on what would be the great legacy of his reign; the city of St. Petersburg. Peter declaring it Russia's "window to the West", meant to be a naval base, ship-yard, and centre of commerce to integrate Russia into European markets. But Peter wanted even more; he made his new city the capital of Russia. In 1719, he order the boyars to relocate there from Moscow, almost like Louis XIV making the French nobility come attend to him at Versailles. With this forced infusion of wealth and residents, St. Petersburg was on its way to becoming one of the great capitals of the world. He also founded the Academy of Science and Russia's first university in the city, to open up the Russian intellectual life to secular philosophy and science. In 1721, the Great Northern War finally ended after over 20 years, with the Baltic territories Peter had seized being confirmed. To celebrate this, Peter had himself acclaimed with a grand new title; Emperor of All Russia. Almost by sheer force of personal will, Peter linked Russia permanently with to European affairs, and the Russian Empire would henceforth loom large in all international relations. This reign, so triumphant on the political scene, had been accompanied by a dismal record in Peter's private life. Within his family, he often behaved like a cruel tyrant, revealed also at times in his public career. His most pathetic victim was his only surviving son, Alexis, a conservative and scholarly young man. Tension between the pair eventually prompted Alexis to renounce his claim to the throne and flee the country. His father viewed this as an act of high treason, and tricked his son into returning to Russia on a promise of clemency. Instead the prince died discreetly in the St. Petersburg fortress, after being brutally tortured into confessing to a supposed rebellion. The only affection in Peter's life proved his lover Catherine, a Lithuanian peasant, captured during the Great Northern War in 1703. She became the Tsar's inseparable companion, bearing him seven children of whom two daughters survived infancy. Peter married her in 1712 and had her crowned empress in 1724. When Peter the Great died in 1725, she succeeded him on the throne as Empress Catherine I (1725-27), the first female ruler of Russia. In doing so, she blazed a path for an unusual series of female rulers over a span of seventy years, culminating in a German princess, who justifiably earned the moniker Catherine the Great. Ottoman Stagnation and Reform Putting a finger on exactly why is tricky, not to say contentious. The remarkable line of inspirational leaders since Osman could not go on indefinitely, and plainly the sultans immediately following Suleiman were not up to the task. A change made in royal protocol had a profound effect on future sultans. Without a system of primogeniture, the crown had previously gone to the strongest son, either through fratricide or a brief civil war. Ahmed I (d. 1617) put in place a more merciful system, of confining princes to their own walled pavilion. The result was less royal blood being shed, but the standard of leadership declined. Sultans, previously on the battlefield from their teens, learning the harsh ways of the world, now emerged in a state of coddled ignorance to take up the responsibilities of power. But there were weaknesses that even a competent ruler could not correct, for they were inherent in the nature of the empire itself. The Ottoman state, geared towards constant warfare after 250 years of virtually unfettered expansion, was unable to adapt to its new relationship with Europe. Moreover, it was dangerously dependent on subjects whose loyalty it could not win. The Ottomans usually respected the customs and institution of non-Muslim communities, which were ruled through their own authorities. This tolerance gave the subjects of the sultan no sense of identification with his rule. The empire was further undermined economically by the discovery of the New World and sea route to the Orient, that shifted the economic balance from the Mediterranean to Atlantic Europe, and away from Ottoman ports. Finally, in the 16th-century, the Turks were confronted by two large imperial power, to the west (Austria) and another to the east (Persia). From the 17th, there was increasing pressure too from the north from an expansionist Russia, especially during and after the reign of Peter the Great. The failed Siege of Vienna (1683) was effectively the Ottomans’ last tilt at expanding further into Europe. Napoleon’s swashbuckling campaign through Egypt in 1799 was a clear indication that Ottoman military might had waned. Late Scientific Revolution The capstone of the evolving Scientific Revolution is generally attributed to Sir Isaac Newton (d. 1726), whose "grand synthesis" provided the physical explanation of the Copernican universe, and finally brought together terrestrial and celestial knowledge. He was born on Christmas Day in the year of Galileo's death, who provided the foundations upon which he would soon build. 22-year-old Newton was a not particularly distinguished fellow of Trinity College Cambridge in 1665, when the university was closed during an outbreak of plague in the city. With 18-months for uninterrupted concentration, the result was one of the most productive periods in scientific history. He began to develop a mathematical theory that later became Calculus, the concept of gravity, and the relationship between light and colour. Newton himself often told the famous story that the moment of truth in relation to gravity was inspired by the fall of an apple from a tree; it was popularised by Voltaire who claimed to have had it from Newton's niece. Upon his return to Cambridge, he won an immediate reputation, and at 27 was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. At this stage his research was mainly to do with optics. He experimented with refraction, splitting white light into colours through a prism, and invented a new and more powerful form of telescope using mirrors; the reflecting telescope became the principle of all instruments until the introduction of modern radio astronomy. With encouragement and financial help from Edmund Halley, of Halley's Comet fame, Newton published his seminal work in 1687, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, usually referred to as simply the Principia. The first step in Newton's work was to solidify a comprehensive understanding of the three universal laws of motion, that Galieo had hinted at without clearly expressing: an object remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force; that the change in motion is proportional to the force and the mass of the object; and that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Armed with these mechanical laws, Newton proved that the force that acted on the moon and planets was the same force that caused an apple to fall to the ground; gravity. He first demonstrated this by calculating mathematically that if one extended the same gravitational force to the moon, it neatly predicted the same elliptical orbit that had been observed by Kepler and others. He explain in one mathematical law not only how the moon and planets are kept in orbit, but to calculate the mass of each planet, explain the equinoxes, to infer the flattening of the Earth at the poles which was later confirmed, and how the gravitational pull of the sun and moon accounts for the movement of tides. This work immediately raised Newton to international prominence, and eventually proved perhaps the single most important and influential scientific work since that of Euclid. Manifestly, he completed the long chain of theories and discoveries that had evolved throughout the Scientific Revolution; Newton himself acknowledged this, "if I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants". Other scientific fields were also making great leaps forward. Anglo-Irishman Robert Boyle (d. 1691) is widely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and to have separated chemistry further from alchemy. In medicine and biology, groundbreaking work was carried out by Englishman William Harvey (d. 1657), who was the first known physician to describe completely, and in detail, the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped to the brain and body by the heart. Various other advances were made: Dutchman Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (d. 1723) constructed powerful single lens microscopes, opening up the micro-world of biology; Dutchman Herman Boerhaave (d. 1738) is regarded as the founder of the modern academic hospital; and Frenchman Pierre Fauchard (d. 1761) in credited as being the father of modern dentistry. Advances were also made in electricity by Otto von Guericke (d. 1668) and Thomas Browne (1682) who developed practical means of generating electricity by friction with an electrostatic generator. Science was also producing practical applications, such as the mercury barometer, vacuum pump, pocket watch, and steam pump. As the Scientific Revolution was born out of the Renaissance and Reformation, so the Scientific Revolution would influenced another hugely important movement; the Age of Enlightenment, a period of philosophical activity unparalleled in modern times. It applied the Scientific Method developed during the 17th-century to human behavior and society during the 18th. The illusion of modernity can easily deceive us. For all the advances of the Scientific Revolution, it had little impact on the everyday lives and thoughts of the mass of Europeans. Many found their traditional belief systems easier to comprehend. Despite the breakthroughs made in astronomy, some monarchs continued to rely on court astrologers as their closest advisors; indeed Kepler himself attempted to confirm the power of astrology, though was unable to do so. In England, the king's touch was long believed to cure certain skin diseases; Queen Anne (d. 1714) took it very seriously. One of the most prevalent superstitions of Europeans and their American brethren was the belief in the existence of witches. The most famous outbreak of hysteria was the Salem Witch Trials (1692) in Massachusetts, in which more than two hundred people were accused, and nineteen executed. Barely twenty years before 1800 the last witch was burned to death in Europe; Anna Göldi (d. 1782) of Glarus in Switzerland. Another curiosity was the practice of leeching blood, based on the Ancient Greek system of balancing the four bodily humors. It continued in medicine well into the 19th century, and probably contributed to the death of George Washington (d. 1799). Popular amusements meanwhile focused on the barbaric pleasures of bear-baiting, cock-fighting, or pulling the heads off geese. Nevertheless, the foundation laid by the Scientific Revolution would prove so important, that less than 350 years after Galileo became the first person to observe the moons surface, human beings would step foot on that surface. Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment (1650-1800) was a pivotal period in the development of modern Western political and intellectual culture, but defining it is very difficult. Like similar terms - the Renaissance, Reformation, Scientific Revolution - the Enlightenment characterised what men felt distinguished their own intellectual age from what had gone before. At its broadest, the Enlightenment was a sprawling intellectual, philosophical, and cultural movement that challenged some of the basic foundations of traditional society, including the role of government, sources of authority, nature of religion, ideas like human liberty and equality, and all aspects of societal structure. The individual Enlightenment thinkers differed greatly from one another, but emerged out of the common themes of the power of reason over tradition and belief in progress through questioning and dialogue. They sought to analyze and reform society, and ultimately paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, from the American Revolution to the French Revolution, and beyond. The roots of Enlightenment are confused. The dramatic success of the Scientific Revolution in overturned many old systems of thinking of the Church and classical antiquity, made it possible for philosophers to begin applying the new Scientific Method to the study of humanity itself. Perhaps the most immediate catalysts were as a response to the preceding century of political and religious conflict in Europe, especially the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, and the English Civil War and Glorious Revolution in Britain. With the former, the atrocities that the German public endured inspired leading European thinkers such as Hugo Grotius (d. 1645) to question the indiscriminate slaughter of war, arguing that individuals had natural rights that transcend a states pursuit of national interests. The latter conflict in Britain effectively ended the idea of divine monarchy, that a king's right to rule derived directly from the will of God. Englishman John Locke (d. 1704) was one of the most influential early Enlightenment thinkers, providing the philosophical toolkit for its major advances. Following in the tradition of Francis Bacon (d. 1626) and René Descartes (d. 1650), Locke pioneered an approach to philosophy modeled on the rigorous methods of experimental science, emphasising the role of sensory experience, along with rationalism and skepticism. He was the first to define the modern concept of identity and the self. Arguing against the prevailing view that all humans were born with innate ideas or beliefs, Locke suggested the mind is a blank slate at birth, which is then shaped by experience, and can be improve through education, reflection, and conscious effort. His writing on politics was highly influential, particularly that societies form governments for the betterment of the whole, and its legitimacy lies in the consent of the governed, later developed by Rousseau into the theory of the Social Contract. On religion, Locke suggested that governments should respect religious freedom except when it threatened public order, though he excluded Catholics who owed allegiance to an external ruler. Perhaps Locke's most famous contribution was that man has three natural rights: life, liberty and property. Although the first major figures of the Enlightenment came from Germany and Britain, the movement truly exploded in France, which became a hotbed of political and intellectual thought in the 1700s. The roots of this French Enlightenment lay largely in resentment at the decadent French monarchy under the “''Sun King''” Louis XIV (d. 1715). Wealthy intellectual elites began to gather regularly in Parisian coffeehouses, to complain about the state of their country. These gatherings only grew in popularity when the far less formidable and competent Louis XV took over. Gradually, idle whining turned into constructive political thought, especially after the works of John Locke became widespread. The High Enlightenment was perhaps best summed up by French literary critic, Émile Faguet; "a chaos of clear ideas". It centered on the dialogues and publications of the giants of the Englightenment; Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Buffon and Diderot. These Enlightenment thinkers would advance such ideas as civil rights that transcend the authority of any government, constitutional government, the separation of church and state, the separation of powers within a government, individual liberty and equality, religious tolerance, and secularism; concepts that were most obviously and enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution. Category:Historical Periods